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(Updated 8:40 p.m.) Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III and Ramon “Mon” Tulfo, a special envoy to China, argued on who’s the more competent worker between Filipinos and Chinese following their influx in the country.

Bello cited the number of overseas Filipino workers on his clapback against Tulfo’s scathing comment that Filipinos are not as efficient as Chinese workers.

“I violently disagree with his opinion on our Filipino workers. He should know that the most sought after workers in the world are the Filipinos. You go in any other country and they always give preference to Filipinos because Filipinos are very industrious, very efficient, and they are very good workers,” he told CNN Philippines.

Tulfo previously remarked that developers in the country prefer Chinese workers because they are more efficient than Filipinos.

More Chinese are year

Data the Bureau of Immigration disclosed to Interaksyon showed a sharp increase in registered Chinese tourists granted special permits to exceed their visa-free stay of 59 days.

In 2013, there were only 17,800 Chinese tourists granted a prolonged stay, before this leaped to 47,5000 for 2016 to more than 100,000 for 2018. The numbers do not include those staying in the country illegally.

The competency of Filipinos and Chinese citizens in terms of work is difficult to determine. It’s also a tricky to compare the number of Chinese arrivals to that of Filipinos migrating to other countries.

From April to September 2017, data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that there are 2.3 million Filipino workers who sought employment abroad.

In terms of profession, 37.6 percent of OFWs have elementary occupations or those that work as helpers, hotel and office cleaners and domestic workers.

The PSA have yet released data from its survey in 2018.—Artwork by Uela Altar-Badayos